JUST A NUMBER

HOW OLD ARE YOU IS A HIGHLY SENSITIVE TOPIC

If you’re ever stuck for an ice-breaker in a room full of 6-year-olds, there’s one question guaranteed to get them all talking: “How old are you?” Especially if you follow it up with a wildly inaccurate guess.

“Let me see. You’re 15, right?” you suggest to the child celebrating the beginning of a seventh trip around the sun.

“Noooo!” they’ll cry. They may even slap their own forehead at your stupidity. “I’m 6!”

They will then fill you in on the ages of the children around them, in relation to their own age and with great precision.

“He’s six months younger than me. She’s only 2. She’s 7 and three days...”

Et cetera. If you’re lucky, they’ll then start going through the ages of the attending adults before making their own wildly inaccurate guess about your vintage. “A 100?”

Discussing age with the under-10s is always appropriate. In fact, if you don’t ask, they will. When every passing year means a party where you get presents you actually want, rather than a scented candle from the White Company, birthdays hold no fear. There’s a real sense of achievement in “reaching double figures” at 10, in turning “sweet 16,” in getting your driving license at 17, in gaining the right to “forget” to vote a year later. And how about turning 21?

“Key to the door,” as they used to say when a 21-year-old could actually buy a house.

After that, it starts to get murky. Once you’re out of early childhood, you’re told it’s rude to ask. Perhaps it’s because by the time you’ve left formal education, age is no longer just a number. Suddenly, it becomes a measure of how far you’ve come. Or not.

The internet is full of lists entitled “things to do by the time you’re 30.” Travel the world. Kiss a dolphin. Buy a house.